Jeremy Huw Williams & Catrin Finch, Poetry of Earth

Jeremy Huw Williams & Catrin Finch, Barddoniaeth Daear

Alun Hoddinott has acute sensitivy in selecting poetry and prose for setting to music. During a long and enriching career he has composed for some of the most notable voices of our time. Since 1991, Alun has enjoyed working with a number of singers and instrumentalists of the young generation and prominent among them is the baritone Jeremy Huw Williams. His flexible voice and extraordinary textual insight have inspired a series of special works over the last decade or more.

The present CD contains contrasted examples - a cycle for voice and harp settings deliciously varied group of poems under the title Poetry of Earth; a cycle for voice and piano celebrating the bicentenary in 1999 of the birth of Russia's Shakespeare, Alexander Pushkin, in resonant translations; and a dexterous collection of folk-song settings full of memorable touches. Over the years Hoddinott has also written for a number of our finest harpists - Osian Ellis, Elinor Bennett, Ieuan Jones and Manon Morris. His second harp sonata "Tempi" was composed for Manon in 1997 and it exploits every possible example of the harp's technique. The folk-song composer enjoyed himself hugely in so doing!

Tracks -

01 - Poetry of the earth (intro)

02 - On the grasshopper and cricket

03 - The snail

04 - I had a dove

05 - The boy and the bird

06 - To nature

07 - Tempi

08 - Elegy

09 - The cloud

10 - Gift of life

11 - To the poet

12 - The flower

13 - To Anna Kerr

14 - Ap Siencyn

15 - Bugeilio'r gwenith gwyn

16 - Dadl dau

17 - Ffarwel fo i Langyfelach lon

18 - Ym Mhontypridd

19 - Tra bo dau

20 - Wenaf wen.

Mae'r CD bresennol yn cynnwys gwahanol enghreifftiau - cylch i lais a thelyn yn gosod cymysgedd hyfryd ac amrywiol o eiriau dan y teitl Barddoniaeth Daear; cylch i lais a phiano sy'n canolbwyntio ar waith y canwr Rwsiaidd Alexander Pushkin, mewn cyfieithiadau soniarus; a chyfres ddeheuig o alawon gwerin wedi eu creu yn gadwyn gofiadwy. Dros y blynyddoedd mae Hoddinott wedi cyfansoddi i nifer o'n telynorion gorau - Osian Ellis, Elinor Bennett, Ieuan Jones a Manon Morris. Ar gyfer Manon y cyfansoddodd ei ail sonata delyn "Tempi" yn 1997, ac y mae'n arddangos pob agwedd o dechneg yr offeryn. Gwnaethpwyd y trefniannu gwerin yn arbennig at ddwylo a thraed Catrin Finch, ac y mae'n amlwg i'r cyfansoddwr fwynhau ei hun mas draw wrth wneud hynny.

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